


We Are (Whatever We Want To Be)

by everyperfectsummer



Series: LOSF Diversity Week [5]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Gender Questioning Character, Multi, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-12
Updated: 2017-08-12
Packaged: 2018-12-14 11:08:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11781903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everyperfectsummer/pseuds/everyperfectsummer
Summary: Hugs are had, tears are shed, and discoveries are made.





	We Are (Whatever We Want To Be)

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for internalized transphobia. Please let me know if I should warn for something else! Betaed by the lovely Liu :)

It starts when he gets to know Len, as a person and a friend instead of as a villain. When Len tells him that if they’re going to be hanging out, he’d rather be comfortable, and introduces himself as a “they,” Barry feels an uncomfortable tightness in his stomach.

 

He then feels guilt for that discomfort, because what sort of person is he? He doesn’t want to be transphobic - he has plenty of trans friends, and loves them and doesn’t want to hurt them by being a jerk. Has he been a transphobe this whole time and no one’s told him? Has he been hurting the people around him unintentionally? He really, really, hopes not.

 

It’s just that. It seems so unfair, that Len doesn’t have to be a “he” and Barry does, that Len gets to be a “they” and Barry doesn’t.

 

But instead of showing any of the discomfort or guilt he’s feeling, he smiles at Len, tells them that he’ll use those pronouns for Len from now on, and feels a different sort of weird feeling in his stomach when Len smiles back, because wow.

 

Len looks amazing all the time, and his – _their_ – smirks are positively sinful, but their smile? Their actual happy smile? It’s one of the most beautiful things that Barry’s ever seen, and he desperately wants to see it again.

 

And he does, weeks later, when he shows up to a – meeting? Get together? Pre-date? _Actual_ date? – with Len, and offers them a gift. Even though Barry’s spending the vast majority of his money on food (being the Flash doesn’t come cheap, at all) he still likes giving people gifts on a fairly regular basis. Which means that he has to come up with creative and low budget ways to do it. For Len, he’s brought them flowers and brought them scrapbooks of beautiful works of art (“ _So you don’t have to steal them to look at them_ ”), but this time he decided to make him – no, _them_ – something from scratch, more handmade than the scrapbooks, which were basically just found art, not enough effort put into them to really count as gifts.

 

He holds out the piece of paper, nervous, and then stares at the floor, to avoid seeing Len’s reaction.

 

“Where’d you get this?” Len asks, voice neutral.

 

“I made it?” Barry says, statement coming out like a question, because _what if Len doesn’t like it_?

 

Len looks surprised. “You can draw?”

 

Barry blushes. “Not super well, obviously,” he gestures at the drawing, “But. Super speed means I can get in my 10,000 hours of practice at things a lot quicker than most people can, so.” He spreads his hands. “Ta-da?”

 

Len looks at him, looks down at the sketch of Len and the Rogues, and smiles, much softer than Barry ever would’ve expected, given that it’s Len.

 

“Thanks, Barry,” they say, still smiling, and Barry feels something in him melt.

 

That’s not the first gift Barry gave Len, but that is the start of the drawing gifts, which Len keeps in a box and brings to whichever house they’re living in at the time to decorate it. Slowly, the drawings take over Len’s home in the same way that Len’s taking over Barry’s heart.

 

One day, as Barry’s drawing Len while Len’s inspecting something he’s trying hard not to look at because it’s probably not legal and _stop breaking the law where I can see, Len_ , the two of them somehow start talking about pronouns.

 

“There’s this new villain on the Rogue’s who’s also nonbinary, and it’s making everybody be a lot better about calling us both ‘they’,” Len says, midway through their monologue about the minutiae of the Rogue’s lives.

 

“I wish I was a they,” Barry says, wistfully, before catching sight of Len’s shocked face and wincing. “Sorry,” he tells the floor.

 

“Hey,” Len says, softer than Barry expected, “don’t be sorry. You can be a they if you want to, no one’s stopping you.”

 

There’s a pause and then, “Well,” they say, reconsidering, “society, sort of, but society also discourages vigilantism and supervillainy and look at us.” They smile, eyes gentler than usual, and Barry feels his throat tighten with guilt, because he doesn’t deserve that sort of care.

 

“But I’m not - I’m not trans, or anything,” Barry says. “I mean, it’d be nice to be? Because I don’t want to be a boy, really. But. I’m not actually trans – like I don’t have dysphoria or anything – so.”

 

Len looks at him, eyes kind. “If you want to be a cis boy who uses they pronouns, that’s fine. But if you don’t want to be a boy, you don’t have to be. It’s that simple.”

 

Barry lets out a sob, and claps a hand over his mouth, dropping the pencil and the now-wrinkled paper, desperately trying to keep the noises inside of his throat and the tears inside his eyes.

 

Len walks over and pulls Barry into a hug. “It’s ok. You can be whatever you want to be. It’s ok, ok? It’s ok.”

 

Barry lets his head fall against Len’s shoulder, and starts crying in earnest, as Len holds him and whispers reassurances in his ear.

 

“You can be whatever you want to be, love. It’s ok.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically just because I, too, just want someone to hug me and affirm my gender.


End file.
